Tessa, after she had been put on her special 'diet' and had already lost some weight Well, not quite. Rather …. a cat on a diet ? Earlier this year when we took Tessa (you can read the story of how she came to us here) to our wonderful vet’s for spaying, they returned her to us, saying that she was too fat to spay ! I was both taken aback and amused at the same time .... in fact, I wasn’t quite sure what to say. (Which, for me, is pretty rare as I usually can’t stop talking !)
Apparently, much like humans, if cats are overweight it makes operating on them difficult as the fatty tissue does not heal well – if at all. As Tessa was carrying most of her weight on her stomach, and this is the area they needed to cut to perform the operation, it would be unlikely that it would knit together and heal well and, the vets sadly informed me, they had lost 2 cats to septicemia through this over the years, and therefore would not take the risk by operating on another fat cat.
So, we were sent home and Tessa was put on a diet. Justin was amused by this, as Africa and dieting do not really go hand-in-hand. To give you an example, fat people are valued and prized in society here – especially the women – the fatter the better as fatness is a sign of health, wealth and in women, the sign of a good child bearer. If you are too thin you are deemed to be weak, sickly and poor. If you are too thin, you’d better watch out ‘cause your husband might just find himself a fat woman on the side ! In all the years Justin has been with us, I’ve been taking thin, starving cats and dogs and fattening them up (Tessa being one of them !) and now we had to make Tessa thin again ? (Ha ! This time, he thought, Mama really HAS gone mad ….)
Anyway, Tessa was put on a diet of meat only (no more expensive, imported dry cat food for her). I could no longer leave a bowl of dry cat’s food out on the counter for the other cats to snack on whenever they felt like it. It had to be locked away in the cupboard and fed to them ‘on the sly’.
But, Tessa is the greediest cat I’ve ever known (I think this stems back to her being starved as a kitten – now she feels she has to eat everything in sight, all the time, just incase she never gets any food ever again ?). She would eat the dog’s food, try and eat my daughter’s cereal in the morning if she left it unattended on the table. She would eat crusts of bread left out for the birds (bread ? a cat ?!) and one night, I even caught her licking the empty dinner plates which were about to be washed …. she wasn’t starving, she was getting enough food. Just not as much as she wanted. She would sit in the kitchen at lunchtime and beg like a dog for food. It was terrible.
So, Tessa on a diet has been a bit of a nightmare in our house and although she’s not as slim as she should be, as she was on heat for the first time last week (and escaped from the house and spent 2 nights in one of the nearby villages “Tessa has found herself a boyfriend, Mama” as Justin put it) she was taken to the vet yesterday by my husband, who was traveling that way for work related stuff. Luckily, she’s (almost) reached her goal weight and was accepted by the vet for the operation. So we can all breathe a sigh of relief … and take the locks off the fridges !
Apparently, much like humans, if cats are overweight it makes operating on them difficult as the fatty tissue does not heal well – if at all. As Tessa was carrying most of her weight on her stomach, and this is the area they needed to cut to perform the operation, it would be unlikely that it would knit together and heal well and, the vets sadly informed me, they had lost 2 cats to septicemia through this over the years, and therefore would not take the risk by operating on another fat cat.
So, we were sent home and Tessa was put on a diet. Justin was amused by this, as Africa and dieting do not really go hand-in-hand. To give you an example, fat people are valued and prized in society here – especially the women – the fatter the better as fatness is a sign of health, wealth and in women, the sign of a good child bearer. If you are too thin you are deemed to be weak, sickly and poor. If you are too thin, you’d better watch out ‘cause your husband might just find himself a fat woman on the side ! In all the years Justin has been with us, I’ve been taking thin, starving cats and dogs and fattening them up (Tessa being one of them !) and now we had to make Tessa thin again ? (Ha ! This time, he thought, Mama really HAS gone mad ….)
Anyway, Tessa was put on a diet of meat only (no more expensive, imported dry cat food for her). I could no longer leave a bowl of dry cat’s food out on the counter for the other cats to snack on whenever they felt like it. It had to be locked away in the cupboard and fed to them ‘on the sly’.
But, Tessa is the greediest cat I’ve ever known (I think this stems back to her being starved as a kitten – now she feels she has to eat everything in sight, all the time, just incase she never gets any food ever again ?). She would eat the dog’s food, try and eat my daughter’s cereal in the morning if she left it unattended on the table. She would eat crusts of bread left out for the birds (bread ? a cat ?!) and one night, I even caught her licking the empty dinner plates which were about to be washed …. she wasn’t starving, she was getting enough food. Just not as much as she wanted. She would sit in the kitchen at lunchtime and beg like a dog for food. It was terrible.
So, Tessa on a diet has been a bit of a nightmare in our house and although she’s not as slim as she should be, as she was on heat for the first time last week (and escaped from the house and spent 2 nights in one of the nearby villages “Tessa has found herself a boyfriend, Mama” as Justin put it) she was taken to the vet yesterday by my husband, who was traveling that way for work related stuff. Luckily, she’s (almost) reached her goal weight and was accepted by the vet for the operation. So we can all breathe a sigh of relief … and take the locks off the fridges !
